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But she was already coming to and beginning to stare wildly about her. A glass of water helped to revive her. She staggered across the hall, and then, with a moan of misery and horror at the sight, threw herself upon her knees, not beside the sofa where Burnham lay gasping, but on the floor where lay our poor old corporal. In an instant she had his head in her lap and was crooning over the senseless clay, swaying her body to and fro as she piteously called to him,–

“Frank, Frank! Oh, for the love of Jesus, speak to me! Frank, dear Frank, my husband, my own! Oh, for God’s sake, open your eyes and look at me! I wasn’t as wicked as they made me out, Frank, God knows I wasn’t. I tried to get back to you, but Pierce there swore you were dead,–swore you were killed at Cieneguilla. Oh, Frank, Frank, open your eyes! Do hear me, husband. O God, don’t let him die! Oh, for pity’s sake, gentlemen, can’t you do something? Can’t you bring him to? He must hear me! He must know how I’ve been lied to all these years!”

“Quick! Take this and see if you can bring him round,” said Gleason, tossing me his flask. I knelt and poured the burning spirit into his open mouth. There were a few gurgles, half-conscious efforts to swallow, and then–success. He opened his glazing eyes and looked up into the face of his wife. His lips moved and he called her by name. She raised him higher in her arms, pillowing his head upon her bosom, and covered his face with frantic kisses. The sight seemed too much for “Burnham.” His face worked and twisted with rage; he ground out curses and blasphemy between his clinched teeth; he even strove to rise from the sofa, but Gleason forced him back. Meantime, the poor woman’s wild remorse and lamentations were poured into the ears of the dying man.

“Tell me you believe me, Frank. Tell me you forgive me. O God! you don’t know what my life has been with him. When I found out that it was all a lie about your being killed at Cieneguilla, he beat me like a slave. He had to go and fight in the war. They made him; they conscripted him; and when he got back he brought me papers to show you were killed in one of the Virginia battles. I gave up hope then for good and all.”

Just then who should come springing down the stairs but Baker, who had evidently been calming and soothing his lady-love aloft. He stepped quickly into the parlor.

“Have you sent for a surgeon?” he asked.

The sound of his voice seemed to rouse “Burnham” to renewed life and raging hate.

“Surgeons be damned!” he gasped. “I’m past all surgery; but thank God I’ve given that ruffian what’ll send him to hell before I get there! And you–you”–and here he made a frantic grab for the revolver that lay upon the floor, but Gleason kicked it away–“you, young hound, I meant to have wound you up before I got through. But I can jeer at you–God-forsaken idiot–I can triumph over you;” and he stretched forth a quivering, menacing arm and hand. “You would have your way–damn you!–so take it. You’ve given your love to a bastard,–that’s what Zoe is.”

Baker stood like one turned suddenly into stone. But from the other end of the room came prompt, wrathful, and with the ring of truth in her earnest protest, the mother’s loud defence of her child.

“It’s a lie,–a fiendish and malignant lie,–and he knows it. Here lies her father, my own husband, murdered by that scoundrel there. Her baptismal certificate is in my room. I’ve kept it all these years where he never could get it. No, Frank, she’s your own, your own baby, whom you never saw. Go–go and bring her. He must see his baby-girl. Oh, my darling, don’t–don’t go until you see her.” And again she covered the ashen face with her kisses. I knelt and put the flask to his lips and he eagerly swallowed a few drops. Baker had turned and darted up-stairs. “Burnham’s” late effort had proved too much for him. He had fainted away, and the blood was welling afresh from several wounds.